The ejidatari@s of Tila, adherents to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandona Jungle, denounced that on 31 August a meeting was held between former ejidal commissioners and a group of approximately 150 others, toward the end of deposing the present ejidal commissioner.

In a communique, the ejidatari@s indicated that the reason for the deposition of the commissioner has to do with the organizers’ position of “not accepting dialogue or coordinating with the City Hall, and renouncing struggle for the land.” They declared that one of the former commissioners reported “that at the meeting three talks have been had with the agrarian procurator based in Palenque,” and that “they made a deal with the [Tila] City Hall so that when we definitively win our case against City Hall for the land, they would receive money in exchange for land, but they do not realize that the assembly has already rejected the government’s plans to offer 40 million pesos [in exchange for settling the court case].”

The ejidatari@s continued: “We publicly denounce the agrarian ministry based in Palenque, Chiapas, and the Subsecretary of Governance in the city of Yajalon who are coordinating with these troublemakers, with the participation of the Tila City Hall, which always hides behind these people and cheers them on. These groups are mafiosos; with them, the governmental structures works to destabilize the social peace.” Furthermore, the ejidatari@s recalled that in the Tila ejido “there exists no legal fund and the municipality has no authority over our lands. The presidency is illegal within the ejido, and only the forms of organization of ejidatarios based on uses and customs should prevail, as supported by the ILO’s Convention 169.”